Actuality economics
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Transition to a Better Future
Not a green movement, precisely, not purely about protecting the environment, Transition is about recreating our communities, from the bottom up, in order to face a slew of impending problems: climate change, peak oil, food production, economic crises. Making efforts now – basic changes that sound more like an older brand of common sense than a 21st-century call for austerity – will ensure more resilient communities, capable of resisting the various shocks that the future certainly holds. A visit to Totnes and Brixton, two UK Transition Towns, reveals the different, concrete forms Transition can take.
Fighting Poverty with Profits and Donations
Earlier this month, a round-table discussion held in Paris provided an opportunity for specialists from diverse disciplines to share their views on the fight against poverty. Specifically, the panel addressed what role philanthropy and business can each play, and how the two can interact. The most promising solution seems to be a hybrid system, somewhere between the two.
Open Access : Towards a New Practice of Scientific Communication
Defended by movements for open access and the self-archiving of scientific publications, the development of free access archives are significant of the needs of scientific research in terms of communication and dissemination. Allowing everyone access to scientific seams to promote the visibility of research work – and much more quickly than via the classical publication process. Open access in particular is the object of many debates common to all scientific disciplines and must be considered in the framework of the historical context of scientific publication. This new practice of scientific publishing is symptomatic of societal changes caused by free access to content shared intentionally on the Internet and thus generates debates similar to that surround free downloading, the distribution of works and copyright protection.
Scientific publication : the model and scandals
The first two learned scientific reviews made their appearance in 1665: Le Journal des Sçavans andPhilosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Their aim was to publish scientific articles to encourage their distribution and develop the long-term archiving of scientific results. In 2009 there were about 24,000 peer-reviewed journals with some 1 million contributing authors. On average 1.5 million publications are read by 10-15 million readers per year, in over 10,000 institutions [1], numbers that increase by 6-7% each year. Scientific publishing houses have developed in order to regulate this proliferation of publications. Their primary role is to publish scientific results and maintain the quality of publications. Over the last few years however, a number of scandals have sullied the reputation of the large publishing houses adding to regular criticisms of their functioning (business plan, peer review, price etc.) (business plan, peer review, price etc)
India and the European Union: evolution of perceptions and mutual interests
This article is taken from the thesis written by Cyril Berthod under the supervision of Robert Frank and Max Jean Zins:« L’Inde et l’Union européenne : Évolution et problématiques croisées d’une relation à plusieurs niveaux » (India and the European Union: Evolution and interlinking issues of a multi-level relationship), defended in April 2009 at Panthéon-Sorbonne Paris 1 University.
